


And Other Collisions

by Raptorlily



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, F/M, Friendship, pre-relationships, slow-burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-16 03:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10562691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptorlily/pseuds/Raptorlily
Summary: What if Jughead was at Cheryl's party in episode one?  What if Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Archie didn't patch things up quite so quickly? What if Reggie and Kevin had their own character arcs?  And what the hell is going on with Cheryl?An expanded, multi-POV AU of episodes 1.01 / 1.02  exploring life and budding relationships at Riverdale High and how everyone copes with Jason's death being deemed a homicide.





	1. i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Can we just pretend, can we just pretend_  
>  That nothing's lost or broken?  
> Can we just pretend this is not the end,  
> It's only mixed emotions? 
> 
> \- **Nothing's Broken, Digital Daggers**

As soon as the closet door closed, Betty felt like everything warm and necessary inside of her had been scraped out. The blood-warm lights of the Blossom parlor, the miasma of perfume and cologne—all eyes on her, gauging her reaction. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears, the playback of earlier tonight spooling out and looping back, again and again.

_‘…I have this fantasy of the two of us as a power couple. Is that so impossible imagine?’_

_‘Betty… I’m sorry. But I… don’t feel the same way.’_

They all knew. They _all_ knew.  Anyone could see that she’d been pining after Archie for years and now he was in the closet with Veronica.

“Twenty bucks says our boy is gettin’ some, if y’know what I mean?” Reggie made a lewd gesture and Chuck and the other football guys burst into laughter. “What a way to bring in the new school year!”

“The new girl is _hot_! Solid 9.5”

“Andrews would be stupid if he didn’t press his advantage.”

“That’s the aim of the game, y’all.”

Betty couldn’t breathe. Her palms were pressed with crescents and she was going to burst into tears at any moment. She could _feel_ it. She stood up, fully aware of Cheryl watching her over the lip of her wine glass (leave it to Cheryl to trot out stemware for a house party) and mumbled something about finding a bathroom.

She needed to wash her hands.  Splash water on her face. She needed to leave. Now.

Her whole body was buzzing. The glass of wine she had earlier had gone to her head. Alcohol was supposed to calm your nerves, but instead, the slight buzz only made Betty feel frayed and lost. And God—where the hell was she going? Wasn’t the front door down this hallway?

Screw Archie. Screw Veronica. Screw everyone and everything and _especially_ screw this stupid oversized mansion with its weird decorative wood panelling and too many doors. Why the hell did she let herself get talked into this? And why wasn’t Kev answering his phone?

She was firing off another ‘SOS’ to Kev’s inbox when she stumbled, unexpectedly colliding with something—someone—warm and solid.  A hand shot out to steady her.

“Betty?”

“ _Jughead_? What are you doing here?”

Standing in the hallway together, the two of them were a study in contrast. Her in still in her blush-hued faille dress; him with his signature beanie, black pants, keds, flannel and oversized maroon hoodie .  It was obvious he hadn’t come from the dance like everybody else.   

Then again, there were few things that Jughead did that were like everybody else.

He grimaced.

 “Getting lost, apparently. Trying to figure out which one of these doors in the _Castle of Otranto_ will take me to Jason’s room. Any ideas? You’ve visited here before.”

Once, maybe, for one of Cheryl and Jason’s birthday parties in elementary school. It was in the backyard and she remembered decorative hedges and topiary and a butler handing out freshly squeezed orange juice on a tray. It must’ve been an off year—in retrospect, she was surprised her mother had let her and Polly attend.

But that was besides the point.

“ _Why_ are you looking for Jason’s room?”

 “I’m investigating,” Jughead rolled his eyes, as if sneaking into the room of the hostess’ dead twin brother was a perfectly normal thing to be doing at a house party. “For my novel.  Cheryl invited half the school, and people are running amuck anyway, humping in corners, using beds that aren’t theirs.” He shrugged. “I’m not into defiling any furniture. I just want a better feel of who I’m writing about.”  He then paused, seemingly taking in her face for the first time. “You OK? You look like you’ve been crying.”

Betty’s cheeks colored. She must’ve looked a hot mess if Jughead would mention it.

“They’re playing seven-minutes in heaven in the parlor,” she sniffed, wiping under her eyes and praying she wouldn’t catch any mascara.  “Archie and Veronica are—they’re playing this round.”

It was enough of an explanation.  Jughead, out of anyone, knew how she felt about Archie. They had both shared Archie as a best friend since they were six years old. He’d been her sarcastic yet long-suffering confidant for nearly just as long. Which was ironic in a way, because Jug had always shown a disdain for boy-girl drama and school politics. He was the consummate loner. He skulked along the frayed edges of Riverdale social fabric, often catching heat from the more athletic and popular boys in their grade. Sometimes Betty wondered if he had any interest in girls—or anybody—at all, and imagined he must’ve been relieved when Kev began to replace him as her Archie-whisperer sometime around middle school.

God. She was pathetic.

 “It’s just a stupid game,” Jughead said, pity softening his usual petulant tone. “Besides, it isn't like Archie is hurting you on purpose. He doesn't know—“

“—I told him,” she interrupted and that was the worst part. It left her with the feeling of a shallow, open gouge somewhere over her heart.  “He knows and he said he doesn’t feel the same. And then Ginger strong-armed us into this party and Kevin encouraged us to go because Moose was going to be here, but now he just _left_ somewhere and we got stuck playing this game and I—I should have just went _home_ instead of pretending I was OK. I’m always pretending I’m OK even when I’m not…”

Her eyes felt hot. She really was going to cry now. She could feel it.  Veronica was supposed to be her friend. Archie was supposed to be her _best_ friend. But anytime she closed her eyes, all she could picture was Archie saying he didn’t feel the same and him and Veronica in that dark, enclosed space—mouths, tongues, teeth and hands.

“Christ, Archie,” Jughead mumbled, shaking his head, but the hand he put on her bare shoulder was warm and strangely calming. “C’mon, Betts,” he told her gently. “You know I can’t deal with the waterworks. I can call you an uber or something.”

She sniffed again and nodded. She wanted nothing more than to climb under her blanket with a fluffy pillow and a glass of water and not think about anything for a little while. If Polly were home, she would have lain in bed with her and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Betty missed her sister. She missed Archie. Hell, she even missed _Jason Blossom_ and she didn’t know him very well.

She just wanted things to be normal.

Of course, in Riverdale these days, strange was the _new_ normal.

The two of them managed to circle back to the front foyer when they were intercepted by Cheryl and Tina Patel, their heels clacking against the marble floors as they moved to block off the exit.

“What the hell is _he_ doing here?” she demanded, looking Jughead up and down as if he'd been pulled from a swamp. “I don’t recall extending any of the Ewells an invite.”

“We were just leaving, Cheryl.” Betty was too tired and heartsick to deal with Madame Satan right now. “Jughead is taking me home.”

 “The hell he is,” Cheryl moved to block their way again. “You think with all our money and your nosy journalist bitch of a mother, we Blossoms don’t have smart-home monitoring? Hello!” She waggled her glitter-embossed smartphone at them, before her gaze flicked back to Jughead. “As far as I’m concerned, Emo Allen Poe, you’re either a guest in my house or you’re trespassing. And most of my _guests_ are in the next room enjoying refreshments and party-games. Trespassing hobos get a complaint filed with the sheriff.” She flipped her hair. “Decide which one you are, _tout suite_!”

Jughead stared. He couldn’t have looked more confused if she’d asked him to escort her to cotillion ball. “You want me to stay and play _party games_ with you?”

“Oh, it’s not what _I_ want, sweetie. It’s what _you_ want.” Cheryl took a threatening step closer. “As a habitué and not a person skulking around where they aren’t welcome.”

Jughead glanced at Betty uncertainly and Betty frowned, a sour gulch lodging in her stomach. Anyone with a brain could figure out that Cheryl was working an angle.  In all likelihood, something _had_ happened between Archie and Veronica, and the soul-sucking succubus wanted them to see it.

Jughead seemed to have come to the same conclusion. “OK, I’ll stay,” he relented. “But I’m calling Betty a ride-share first.”

“No, it’s OK, Jug.” Betty reached out to stop him from pulling his phone out of his pocket, oblivious to the _look_ Cheryl suddenly exchanged with Tina at her impetus. “I’ll stick around for a little bit. After all, our hostess has really gone out of her way to make tonight something special.”

She glared at the red-haired girl. Her heart was a leaden, thudding thing in her chest, but her last nerve had finally burned through. She wasn’t going to abandon Jughead to a room full of jocks. And she sure as _hell_ wasn’t going to let Cheryl Blossom take advantage of her heartbreak and conflict with Archie to stir in some of her patented bullshit.

Besides, if she went home right now, she knew she'd be spending the rest of the night wondering what the hell really happened. And that, she decided, was far more torturous than facing her demons head on.

Cheryl looked like the cat with a bowl of cream.

 “Oh, you _bet_ tonight will be something special,” she licked her teeth.  “Come along, then.”

She spun around on her heels, Jughead shooting Betty a puzzled look as they followed her back into the party.

As if on cue, the moment they entered the parlor, the closet door opened and Veronica and Archie emerged to howls and hoots from around the room (‘Yes—Andrews is the MAN!’) and Betty felt like she was going to throw up.

Despite their best efforts to smooth themselves down, Veronica and Archie's hair and clothes were well-mussed. Even if Betty didn’t know what game they’d been playing, it would have been obvious. The guilt was written all over their faces.

 “Well, that was _a lot_ longer than seven minutes,” Cheryl said triumphantly, checking her phone. “Lost track of time?”

She tilted a smirk at Veronica, who glared at her in disdain and followed Archie as he bounded across the room towards Betty and Jughead.

"Betty!" Archie exclaimed in relief. "I'm so glad you didn't leave. I need to talk to you." His large, warm hands took hold of her wrists but instead of feeling giddy and free like usually did when Archie touched her, Betty felt bile creep up into her throat.  “I—Veronica and I—we didn’t mean…after what you said at the dance…”

But all Betty could focus on was the fact that his mouth was still slightly red from trying to wipe off traces of Veronica’s lipstick. 

She took an uneasy step back, heartache suddenly swelling in her chest like a balloon filled to its very limit. She wanted to yell, wanted to scream, wanted to explode all over him, but she couldn’t. The balloon got so big, it crowded out everything else —words, thoughts, feelings—until it snuffed it all out. She didn’t know how to react.  She never knew how to react when people stepped all over her.

Betty looked away and momentarily caught sight of Jughead instead. He was frowning.

 “It’s fine, Archie,” she said quietly, pushing off his hands. “You were just playing a game…”

“No, it’s not fine.” Archie insisted, a panicked note in his voice. “ _Betty_ …”

“Save your heartfelt apologies and excuses for later, Casanova,” Cheryl interrupted, slipping a slim arm around Betty’s shoulder and leading her away. “B is for Betty, so it’s Blondie’s turn in the closet and I can't think of a better way to welcome my newest _guest_ than by given him first rights.”

Her venom-green eyes settled on Jughead gleefully and Betty felt her blood spike with unease as soon as she put two and two together.

“You’re going to stick me and Betty in a closet together?” Jughead stared back at Cheryl, both eyebrows raised to the brim of his beanie, completely unfazed. Betty was relieved that he found his voice first. She wasn't sure she'd have half the composure or lazy bite in her words. “ _That’s_ what you dragged us back here for?”

“C’mon Cheryl,” Reggie piped up from the couch. “It’s like you’re pairing up Emo Tim Drake with Prude Gwen Stacy. They’re both dead from the waist down. They’ll probably just play candy crush and braid each other’s hair for seven minutes.”

“I don’t do comic book references, you nerd,” Cheryl snapped. “But I do see your point. This does need a bit more zing.” She tossed her long, cherry curls over her shoulder and turned to Betty. “Kiss him. Here. Right now.”

Betty couldn't have been more surprised if she'd been landed with a telenovela slap. She glanced at Jughead, who looked equally as stunned, then back at Cheryl.

“What?”

 Cheryl’s smile was as sharp as a kitchen knife. “We need proof that you’re going to follow the rules.”

This earned the hooted approval of everyone else in the room.

“Yeah!” Someone shouted. “Make ‘em do open-mouth and tongue!”

"C'mon, Donnie Darko! Man-up!"

Veronica threw them all a look of disgust.

“OK,” she said, stepping forward between Jughead and Betty and facing Cheryl. “The obvious stupidity and perv-y voyeuristic nature of all this aside, exactly _why_ are you doing this? Haven’t you caused enough drama already?”

 Cheryl rolled her eyes.

 “Relax, Ada Lovelace. It's just a kiss. None of us believe blondie here would deflower the black dahlia in the closet anyway, so we’re going back to kiddie school and down-grading to spin-the-bottle.”

“Oh God." Jughead pinched the bridge of his nose. "Could you _be_ anymore of a cliché?"   

“You said you were going to stay and play nice and we already established it’s Betty’s turn," Cheryl informed him primly. She glanced at Ginger, who was perched on the edge of the nearest couch. “Put two minutes on the timer,” she instructed, before turning back to Jughead and Betty. “I’m going easy on you, so make it interesting.”

Betty's heart was hammering in her chest and on stupid instinct, her gaze flicked toward Archie. He and Veronica were exchanging a look and when they glanced back at her, the expression on Archie’s face was more concerned than covetous. Wouldn’t someone with even a whit of feeling be a little jealous? Or even protest this kind of public humiliation?

Not if he didn’t care. Or if he didn’t think he had anything to worry about.

Not if he and Veronica had a good time in that closet.

"Would you hurry this up?" Cheryl's voice edged in. "Don't tell me Betty is so undesirable that neither one of her male friends is willing to touch her."

"Shut up, Cheryl," Jughead said and then flinched in surprise when Betty suddenly stepped into the circle of his arms. Her head was buzzing with… something. An unnameable emotion. Vehemence, maybe. She didn’t know. Jug's gaze snapped to hers and she could feel the tension in the line of his shoulders, could see the muscle working in his jaw, but there was something vulnerable—almost earnest—in his eyes.

Her heart fluttered. Did he _want_ to kiss her?

“This is stupid,” he muttered.

“I know,” she answered, softly. “But you’re the one who crashed the party. Try to relax. It's just me."

 _It's just Jughead_ , she reminded herself.

She then looked at his lips, swept forward and set her mouth against his in a firm kiss. 

In retrospect, maybe it started out as her trying to prove something to Archie or Cheryl.  Or maybe, just herself. Jughead was just… well, who he was. She expected he'd dismiss the whole thing with a sarcastic quip or two, and dryly tell her not to do something like this again.

She was completely unprepared for his reaction. Or her own.

Jughead stiffened at the contact at first. He brought his hands up to her arms and Betty half-expected him to push her away, Cheryl and her stupid games be damned. But then, he was leaning into her, the long lines of his body like an arching bridge over hers, one hand at the nape of her neck, the other splayed across her bare back as he returned her kiss, awkwardly, but with unmistakable desire. 

 _Jughead?_ Betty’s initial astonishment was quickly swept away by an answering wave of desire as intense as it was unexpected. There were reactions from around the room—whoops and hollers, lewd suggestions from Reggie, Chuck and their ilk—but she blocked them out.  All thoughts of Archie, Veronica, Cheryl, everybody—rocketed out of her head like they'd never been there or ever existed. The whole world was on the edges of her periphery and those edges bled into a vignette. For two minutes, it was just the peppery-pine of Jughead’s soap, the thrum of his racing heart beneath her palm, the solid warmth of his chest pressed against hers.

And it felt... good. Better than good. The back of her head was tingling, her entire body charged with a strange, exhilarating current that latched onto her nerve-endings, pulling her off the beaten path to discover someplace unfamiliar but extraordinary.

The chime on Ginger’s phone sent her hurtling back to earth.

Betty pulled away, regarding Jughead quizzically. Her heart was pounding like she'd run a marathon. What the heck had happened in the space of just one kiss? 

He stared back at her, eyes wide with equal surprise, cheeks flushed and lips slightly parted. He looked like he was about to say something when Cheryl immediately cut between them.

“Well, that was nauseating," she pronounced, "but maybe there’s hope for you yet, Monster High.” She cupped Jughead by the chin and gave him a carnivore’s smile. He jerked away from her in disgust and she laughed, turning to Betty next. “Do you think our plan worked, Betty?” She dropped her voice to a stage-whisper. “Think Gingerboy is hashtag-jealous you tongue-tousled with his weirdo-best friend?”

Her glittering eyes slid towards Archie and Betty’s gaze followed, her heart squeezing in her chest queerly, her lips still tingling from her kiss with Jughead. Archie’s expression was an unreadable storm of emotion.

 _Was_ he jealous?  Did it matter? Suddenly, this all felt a lot like some kind of hollow victory. 

She then glanced at Jughead. All the blood seemed to have drained from his face. He pressed his lips together and shaking his head, he wheeled out of the room.

_Oh no!_

“Jug—wait!”  Archie was the first to run after him.

Cheryl was grinning triumphantly as Reggie slid next to her and Betty, a wine glass in hand.  He slid an arm around Betty’s waist, brushing the spot where Jughead’s hand been not a minute before, and Betty felt her blood set to a boil.  

“Next time, Goldilocks," he leered down at her, "you can just ask me. It’ll save you the tetanus shot.”

Everyone within earshot burst into laughter.

Betty glared up at him fury and slapped the drink out of his hands. Wine splattered all over Cheryl and her cerise Valentino dress.

“Bitch,” Cheryl snarled as Betty pushed away from Reggie and made for the door after Archie and Jughead, Veronica hot on her heels.


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica tries to apologize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _I'll be good, I'll be good_  
>  And I'll love the world, like I should 
> 
>  
> 
> \- **I'll Be Good - Jaymes Young**

 Archie and his emo friend were nowhere in sight when Veronica caught up to Betty just outside the massive Tudor residence. Six inch heels were cumbersome to run-in all on their own, but, like most things Blossom, even their stupid driveway had to make an annoying situation even more annoying. 

Cobblestone and Louboutin’s did not mix.

 And while Betty’s shoes were definitely _not_ high-end designer (Steve Madden, maybe?) Betty seemed to have come to the same conclusion about her lack of surface appropriate footwear. She stood marooned in the middle of the circular drive, one arm huddled over her body for warmth as she held out the other for her iPhone, fiercely thumbing in a message.  The white glow from the screen lit up her features and Veronica noted the tear tracks, the tiny flecks and crumbles of mascara in the corner of her eyes.

Veronica’s stomach lurched. She was responsible for at least half of that. Daddy always used to say that if the first thing she did each morning was eat a live frog, she could go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that it would probably be the worse thing that was going to happen to her all day long. It wasn’t one of his most poignant lessons on how to overcome obstacles in life—a must if she was going to make it in the world—but the metaphor was visceral enough that Ronnie had come to picture most unpleasant situations as big, slimy amphibians.

Talking to Betty about the closet and Archie; that was the toad on her plate right now.

 “Betty?” she asked and the other girl looked up wearily in response, her phone to her ear. Veronica could hear it ringing whoever she was calling, but they clearly weren’t picking up. “They totally ghosted, huh?” Veronica tried for a sympathetic half-smile. “Not the first time I wished flats went with an outfit.”

Betty narrowed her eyes and showed her back.

Veronica was greeted by a momentary flicker of annoyance.

The Old Veronica would’ve have thrown her hand up in the air and said, ‘eff this noise’ because she’d always been allergic to girls that cried in bathroom stalls and polished their halos instead of taking what they were owed.  But the New Veronica…she recognized the tension in Betty’s shoulders, her entire manner growing more agitated with every unanswered ring. This was her life. These were her friends. Veronica had waltzed in _medias res_ and, with all the grace of Gordon Ramsay at a Sunday parish bake-off, plucked the stars out of her eyes and trampled them underfoot.

This was on her. This was hers to fix.

“Listen, B,” she tried again and then took a composing breath through her nose. “About what happened back there... I just want to say that I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It was _such_ a basic bitch move.”

“Yeah. It was.” Betty clicked off her phone and swiveled around to face Veronica, her face a mask of tear-y eyed fury. “You know how I feel about Archie. _You_ were the one who kept pushing this. ‘Tell him how you feel, girl. Slay all your dragons! You never know!’” She brushed an angry hand over her cheeks with a sniff. “I thought you were trying to be my friend.”

 _I was_ , Veronica thought desperately.

 “But maybe it had nothing to do with me,” Betty continued, looking up skywards to prevent more tears from falling. “Maybe you just needed confirmation that the boy you set your sights on didn’t have any feelings for the girl-next-door.”

An electrifying cold washed down Veronica’s spine.

 “Woah, girl!” She showed her palms, her eyes wide. “No way. That is not—that isn’t even _remotely_ true! I was trying to get him to reflect on your relationship. Think this through. Even in the closet, I was trying to talk to him about you!”

OK, that sounded like a heap of designer bullshit even to her own ears.  It certainly started out that way, but everyone knew that wasn’t how it ended.

Of course Veronica had thought Archie was sizzlin' from the minute she’d laid eyes on him, but as soon as Betty claimed stake, the chicks before dicks clause was invoked and Veronica vowed to keep that sacred.

For whatever reason, she had taken an instant liking to Betty. She was just so different from the crowd she ran with back in New York.  Wholesome and sweet, like a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. She was a grounding force. A positive influence. And though at times Veronica thought that she wore a few too many sweaters and too many  _Little House on the Prairie_ pastels, she appreciated how the blonde girl seemed to own her femininity.  She could see them being friends. She wanted them to be friends. 

She really wasn’t sure what had come over her in the closet. The dim lighting, the closeness of his body, the murmuring rumble of his voice.  It shouldn’t have been that difficult to resist him. She’d been on a steady diet of fine looking boys in NY. She wasn’t _deprived_. And Veronica Lodge was always in control. But with Archie...it was like a spell had been cast. She couldn’t help herself. Just one look into those puppy dog brown eyes and the swarm of butterflies in her stomach blacked out all consideration for her new friend and her feelings and every confidence in her ability to hold herself back from temptation, all her good intentions dissipating like a curl of smoke.

The loss of control had been almost as exhilarating as it was alarming.

 “Right.” Betty scoffed, folding her arms. “You spent _twenty minutes_ in the closet talking about me and artfully smudging your make-up all over Archie’s face. Convince someone else.”

She made to storm away and the guilt boiled in Veronica’s stomach. She surged forward, scampering to intercept the blonde and nearly turning her foot when her heel caught a groove.

 “Betty, hold on a second!” She reached for the other girl’s wrist, looking her in the eye earnestly. “I didn’t plan this. Neither did Archie. We got caught up, OK? I think you know what that’s like.”

Betty rolled her eyes and petulantly ripped her hand from her grasp. “No, I don’t.”

“Really?” Veronica challenged, not unkindly. “So you’re telling me that that Cheryl was right? That the whole thing with Fallout Boy back there was just a ploy to get Archie jealous? Because that doesn’t seem like your style.”

No. Betty was Too Nice™. And the way those two had clung to one another—it was something woke. Veronica was sure of it. She could always tell the difference between a Hermes and a knock-off.

“No. I don’t know.” Betty sucked her pink bottom lip between her teeth and looked away uncertainly.  “You don’t know me, Veronica. And you don’t know Archie or _Jughead_. You don’t know anything about anyone in this town and yet you think you have the right to tell people what’s up and what’s down.”

Veronica quashed another flare of irritation ( _I know people better than you do, me pollita)_ — New Veronica, not Old—and took a step forward.

“I may not know you as well as you know Archie or…uh, Jughead,” she deliberately gentled her voice, trying not to trip over the unfortunate name. “But I hope to one day. Look,” she sighed. “I screwed up royally tonight—and I totally get it if you hate my guts right now—but I want to fix it if you’ll give me a chance.”

Betty didn’t look at her, but her expression softened.

“I don’t know if any of it is fixable,” she muttered miserably and Veronica wasn’t quite sure if she meant their new friendship, her friendship with either of the boys, or all three.

“Most things are fixable, if you’re willing to try,” Veronica said, channeling her mother for a second. “The hardest part is not letting your feelings cloud out what’s important and I think that’s exactly what happened tonight. At least, for me anyway.”  She took in a deep breath and breathed out. “I’m really sorry for hurting you, Betty.”

Both of them turned their heads. There was a navy Crosley Station Wagon coming up the drive, it’s headlights bobbing up and down as it hit a dip in the road, momentarily bathing the two girls in a ghostly white light before it turned to follow the round-about.  Betty raised her hand to signal and Veronica’s stomach dropped. That was her uber.

“We’ll talk tomorrow?” Veronica asked hopefully as Betty stepped toward the car when it rolled up beside them.

Betty opened the door and spared her a glance. “No, I don’t think so.” Her eyes were glassy, her voice like broken shards. “I need to go find my real friends.”

The door shut and Veronica flinched as the noise reverberated inside her chest, chasing the hairline cracks along her heart.  She watched the vehicle roll away and licked her lips, looking up blinkingly at the sky.

God. If all the world was a stage, was she always going to be type-cast to play the Alpha Bitch?

She looked over her shoulder and was irritated to find Cheryl leaning against one of the massive colonial columns on the front porch. There was no doubt in Veronica’s mind that small-town Pamela Isley had come out to survey what her chaotic seeds had sown. She’d probably been standing there the whole time. Her arms were folded across her Victoria Secret supported chest, her entire manner screaming smug victory.

Veronica felt her spine turn into a blade of ice. “Enjoying yourself?” she called.

“Immensely!” Cheryl called back, her manic grin visible even from a few feet away. “I do so enjoy drama!”

“Take it in while it lasts!” Veronica advised. She kicked off her Louboutin’s and turned her back to start down the drive barefoot, picking up her phone to dial Smithers. “Because you’re not going to like Act Two.”


	3. iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Archie breaks Betty's heart. Betty grapples with it in an unusual way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _It's everything you wanted, it's everything you don't_  
>  It's one door swinging open and one door swinging closed 
> 
>  
> 
> **\- Ross Copperman, Holding on and Letting Go**

An unfamiliar car pulled up curb-side, and Archie looked up when the door opened. Betty’s dainty heeled foot stepped out of the car, then the rest of her followed, blonde, pink and pretty. A princess coming back home from the ball.

A preoccupied and heartbroken princess.

Her head was bowed over her phone, even as she shut the car door behind her and picked her way up the path to the front of her house. She froze when he stood up on the porch, alerting her of his presence.

 “Hey,” he greeted hesitantly. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his slacks and started down the steps to meet her half-way. “Any luck finding Jug?”

He decided it was best to open on neutral ground. He was still reeling from her earlier revelation. Betty Cooper, in love with him. Betty Cooper, his childhood best-friend.

Betty Cooper looking bloodless and gutted when he emerged from the closet with Veronica.  

Shit. He shouldn't have done that.

Betty drew her petal pink sweater closer around her shoulders. “No, his phone’s off,” she murmured. “I’m guessing he’s not at Pop’s?”

“No, I think he went home and that means he’s not in the mood for talking.”

Not that Archie imagined Jughead would even _want_ to talk to him. Not when the time for them talking about anything important had long since passed. Running after him tonight had been an old reflex. Twelve years of friendship was a hard habit to shake.

 “Jug will come around,” Archie found himself saying (hoping), staring down at the pebble next to his shoe. “You know how weird he gets about these kinds of things.”

“Yeah.” Betty folded her arms, pulling in self-consciously.  “I just wish I knew what he was thinking.”

“Me too.”

If it were anyone else, Archie might have been able to hazard a guess.  Jug had always been squirrely about matters of the opposite-sex and dating, but Archie was fairly certain that Jug liked girls. His favourite films were usually raunchy B-movies from the 80’s that featured at least one woman naked from the waist up and his anime collection was full of nothing but fan-service. Archie always chalked up his skittishness to being more a confidence thing than a lack of interest. Jug didn’t really have any friends besides himself and Betty, and as far as Archie knew, Jug’s first and only kiss had been an unsolicited one from Ethel back in seventh grade.  

But this probably wasn’t about Betty or the fact that she was a girl or even the kiss at all.

It was probably some complicated principle of the thing.  It was _usually_ some complicated principle of the thing and often one that wasn’t immediately apparent and involved a lot of academic-sounding words. Jughead seemed to have a lot of those kinds of principles lately.  Sometimes, Archie wondered if it was because he liked having something to be outraged about and explaining why just to make himself sound smarter than everyone else.  

And right now, Archie wasn’t really in the mood to be told just how dumb he was.

Betty sniffed and looked up at the sky. A cool breeze blew, ruffling the flare of her skirt, running invisible fingers through the mass of blonde curls loose around her shoulders. Even with a red nose and tear-rimmed eyes, she was one of the most beautiful girls Archie knew. And the kindest and the sweetest and the smartest too. He’d known her his whole life.  Falling in love with Betty Cooper should've been easy. A matter of gravity. A matter of inevitability.

But lately, he’d been finding inevitabilities terrifying.

Like staying in Riverdale and working construction for the rest of his life. Like just being another part in somebody else's grand plan.

The silence yawned between them. A car rattled down the street, paused at the stop sign and then tore into the night with a screech of tires.

“Something happened to this town while I was in L.A,” Betty broke first, shaking her head. “Everything is different. _Everyone_ is different. Even you and Jughead. It's not the same with you two.”

“No, it isn't.” Archie let out a sigh. He’d been feeling it too. “I—I keep making shitty decisions concerning my friends and my life and I can’t seem to stop.” He looked up at her and he swallowed hard. “And now I’m terrified I’m going to lose you too.”

Betty took a careful step closer. “Is that why you don't want us together?  Because if something were to happened...you’re afraid of losing me?”

The hopeful note in her voice made him ache.

“No,” he said immediately and she flinched as if he'd struck her. He squeezed his eyes shut. God, he was so bad at this. “I'm sorry—I'm so screwed up right now. I can't even believe that was me back there at Cheryl’s. Honestly, Betty. I would never want to do anything to hurt you.”

“Is it Veronica?”

“No.”

“Is it someone else?”

Geraldine and the morning of July 4th flashed into mind.

“Betty—”

“Then _what is it_?” Her eyes were shimmering again, her face crumpling in the way he knew signaled she was seconds from breaking down, and he felt like someone kicked him in the chest. “Archie—I'm asking you here, right now. Do you love me? Do you feel anything for me at all?”

“Oh my God, of course I love you, Betty.” His heart was pounding and he reached for her wrists, looking down into her in the face earnestly. “Just—not the way—not the way you want.”

Her brows knitted together in confusion and two fat tears escaped, rolling down her cheeks, curling under her chin.

“ _Why_?”

His mind flashed back to the closet with Veronica. Her pressing questions about Betty and their relationship and if they could be more. He’d been honest when he said he never felt anything like he was supposed to feel for Betty. He never felt the draw to her the way he felt drawn to Veronica. Or Geraldine. Or any other girl he’d wanted to kiss and hold and possibly fall in love with.

He thought of Betty kissing Jughead in the middle of the Blossom parlour. He knew it wasn't real—the idea of Jughead and Betty together, ever, was a preposterous one—but if there was the slightest chance he could love Betty, shouldn't he have felt _something_ at seeing her with another guy?

He then thought back to those nights in his bedroom, his guitar in his lap, dreaming of a life beyond Riverdale with music and bright lights and travelling around the world, of a life in Riverdale making his dad proud and graduating business school, not knowing what the hell he wanted from his life. Betty always knew what _she_ wanted. He remembered staring out his window and into the blackness of her room, thinking about all the sunny photos she messaged him from L.A, about all the plans she shared with him for college, how she always did what she said she was going to do and how she had her life planned from now until age thirty. He never understood it. How anyone could ever be sure of anything when some days he couldn’t even decide what was left and what was right anymore.

God. He had an illicit affair with a teacher over the summer and now he was black-mailing her into giving him music lessons on the off-chance he might make it as a musician.

What the _hell_ was wrong with him?  

 “Tell me the truth, Archie,” Betty pleaded, struggling to hold back a sob and even when on the verge of falling apart, she looked so impossibly together. “Respect me, respect our _friendship_ enough to be honest with me.”

“You’re so perfect.” The words burst out of him before he could even think them through. “I’ve never been good enough for you. I’ll never be good enough for you.”

There was a moment. Several complicated emotions seemed to flit across Betty’s features at once—disappointment, heartache and resentment—before her lip twisted and she slowly pulled away, her wrist falling out of his grasp. The cold air rushed in and he immediately missed her warmth.

“Perfect,” she repeated bitterly, drawing herself up. There was a sudden ice in her manner that lodged a shard into his heart.  

She moved past him to walk to her door and Archie turned around, half meaning to run over to her and—

—What? Hug her? Kiss her? Tell her everything was going to be okay? Tell her he didn’t mean anything he said?

_Tell her about this summer. Tell her why you and Jug aren’t friends anymore. Tell her about Grundy and the gunshot and how you’re blackmailing her into giving you music lesson. Tell her everything that you’ve been keeping secret and she’ll never look at you again._

Or worse—she’d understand.

And he still wouldn’t be able to give her what she wanted.

“Betty, I’m sorry,” he called after her.

The front door opened and shut in answer.

**

“You’re sixteen minutes late for curfew, Elizabeth,” Alice remarked, not looking up from her laptop from where she was sitting on the living room couch. “Do we have to revisit our discussion on responsibility?” She removed her horn-rimmed glasses and turned around to see Betty ascending the stairs. Her face fell as she took in her daughter’s tear stained face and she immediately stood up. “Betty? Are you all right? Did something happen? It was that Andrews boy, wasn’t it?”

“You can tell me you told me so later, Mom,” Betty informed her tiredly. “I just want to be left alone tonight.”

“Sweetheart, I—”

“Please, mom. Just— _please_. Just this once, don’t be you and spare me the lecture I don’t need. I’m going to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

She went up to her bedroom, locked the door and mechanically changed out of her dress, zipped it up in a garment bag and hung it in her closet. Through her window, she could see the light go on in Archie’s room and she flew to slap the switch on her wall, plunging her into the darkness. Her heart was beating erratically, her breathing shallow and quick as she watched him pace around his room. He was texting someone. She glanced at her phone. No new messages from either Jughead or Kevin. There were four from Veronica. Two from Archie from before. A new one right now. She immediately deleted them without reading them. She sent another ‘?!!?!’ to Kevin and ‘please, jug, just answer’ to Jughead and then, ignoring the sight of Archie in her periphery trying to peer into her window, went to locate her jeans and light blue hoodie in the blue-black shadows of her room.

She needed to get away. She needed to clear her head. And having Archie just a few feet away, lying in his bed shirtless and texting her was another strike to her already beleaguered heart.

She turned her phone on silent, shut the blinds and then, like Polly once showed her how to do, snuck into their shared Jack n Jill bathroom, opened the window and clambered out onto the patio roof.

It was even colder outside than when she came home earlier that evening. Late summer was now turning into fall and soon, the leaves would be on the ground and the trees would look dead. Winter always seemed to come earlier to Riverdale than anywhere else and so did the autumn sugar rush.  Polly had insisted that Jason would be taking her this year, both sets of parents be damned, and it was almost stupid how much she cared about it. She talked about it like it was a catholicon that could fix everything—as of declaring their love in front of the whole town would make all their problems go away and the Coopers and the Blossoms would miraculously see the errors of their ways and join hands and live out the rest of their lives in a perpetual Disney-movie ending.

And as stupid and naïve as it was, Betty had desperately hoped she was right. It would have been _nice_ to have quiet for a change. To have everything at home peaceful and happy like it used to be.

With Polly gone, it was like there was a void in the house. Or maybe a ghost. Her sister’s bedroom had that cold, liminal quality of a hospital room at midnight. The bed remained made, the sheets drawn a bit too crisply around the corners; the dresser perpetually clear of the clutter and cosmetics Pols kept laying around just because it drove their mother crazy. At night, there were no low conversations muffled by their shared wall. Mornings passed without any arguments about the bathroom or the car or the importance of presenting a united front when their mother started on about Polly hanging around cheerleaders and _that boy_ again.  

Now, there was touch of something not-quite right that, perhaps, had always been there and Betty simply never noticed. The rows between Polly and their parents usually kicked up enough dust to cloud out everything else. On days when her sister refused to take her medication, the arguments were worse. Betty remember laying on her bed and reverently praying for some semblance of normalcy.

She reached the main intersection at the bottom of Third Street and hit the ‘push-to-walk’ button, waiting for a moment for the light to turn red before realizing there were no cars out on the roads and the lights were changing for no one.

The silly, tragic tears started up again and Betty angrily swiped them away as she scooted across to the opposite curb, breathing out a shaky breath once her feet hit side-walk again.

The only times when things seemed normal was at school.

As a shy freshman, Betty could only watch from afar, cradling her books to her chest as the Polly and Jason paraded the halls like a queen and her king—Polly in her Vixen uniform, Jason in his letterman jacket, one arm laughingly slung about her shoulders. They always talked about the parties they went to together. The joyrides on the old forest road; grill-outs at Sweetwater River; keggers at the next town over. Betty would see them together, sharing milkshakes at Pop’s, showing PDA in the student lounge and huddling close in the library.

They seemed so happy. They were like the perfect couple. Safe and in love, like nothing else mattered but them.

Betty used to daydream about what it would look like for her when her time came. A slow-motion, hazy vision of walking the school hallway on Archie’s arm, the other students lining up along the lockers to smile and wave. She always imagined Kevin gesturing wickedly when Archie’s head was turned and acting natural when it wasn’t.  Cheryl looking her up and down with grudging respect. Reggie, Moose and the other football guys cheering Archie on and Jughead peeking around the corner, shaking his beanie-clad head with a signature half-smirk as if to say, ‘about damn time.’

She and Archie—they could tell a different story from Polly and Jason. A happier, less tragic one. The story that was _supposed_ to happen.  

And that now, apparently, never would.

Shoving her freezing hands into her pockets, Betty quickened her pace as she turned down the Main Street next. Her gut twisted itself into knots as she replayed Archie’s words in her head over and over, her feet keeping in time.

_You’re so perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect._

God, why did she let herself get talked into saying anything? Things were fine as they were before. Back when Jason Blossom alive, Polly was in the house and Veronica Lodge was far away in New York and minding her own damn business. Back when it was just her and Archie back in the booth at Pop’s or Jughead hosting them in the projector room at the drive-in, back when the three musketeers used to ride their bikes along the railroad tracks all the way to Greendale bridge.  

She could hear the train from Greendale coming in now. A lonely wail in the distance. She turned into the next sodium-lit street and then turned a sharp left at the crossing-barriers to cut across the field to follow along the railroad tracks. When she was comfortably far enough from the road and covered in darkness, she stopped a few feet away from the metal bullhead and waited.

More than anything, she wished they could start over. Before Jason’s death cast a spell over the town and Polly had to go away.  Before she put her heart in a blender and told Archie how she felt.

Before she kissed Jughead and made it weird between them too.

Her lips tingled at the reminder of her lips against hers and she shut her eyes, feeling her stomach turn into a sour gulch.

 _Why the hell did you run out of there, Jug?_  she wondered.   _Why can’t you just tell me which high-school movie that was from and call it a day?_

She could really use his dark sense of humor right now. Some obscure 80's pop-culture reference.

Her phone lit up in her hand and she looked down, hope fluttering in her chest.

No messages from Jughead.

But one—no, two messages from Kevin.

 _Finally_ , she thought.

Betty thumbed in her passcode and opened them.

_< sorry 2 miss ur drama, legit freaking the f out rn>_

_< good? news: we found jason’s body>_

_Jason?_ Betty’s brows furrowed, not fully comprehending at first and then felt a chill slip down her spine as she suddenly realized that Kevin had likely taken Moose to his favourite rendez vous point at Sweetwater River.   _Polly’s Jason?_

The phone chimed again and she looked down, the blood throbbing in her ears. 

_< worse news: he didn’t drown, he was SHOT> _

The next message was an image. A boy with red hair.

And then, suddenly, there was the train, bursting along the track like Satan on a hell wind and a death knell. Standing a few feet away from the track, with her hair and clothes rippling as it whipped past, Betty let the noise drown out her scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That train thing was shamelessly lifted from the original pilot script of the show. I felt like they should've left it in.  
> Any thoughts on the interpretation of the characters? Archie was an unexpected challenge for me.


	4. iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Kevin has an awkward conversation with his father. Archie grapples with guilt and talks to Jughead.

On Monday morning, Kevin skipped down the steps into the kitchen where he was surprised to find his father sitting at the island reading the paper. Dressed and fully pressed in his khaki uniform, Sheriff James Keller was taking meditative sips of his coffee out of the ‘I donut care’ mug grandma Tandi got him last Christmas as a joke. Since his father’s sense of humor was usually as dry as a stale wafer on a doily-laden coffee table, Kev figured that was his mother’s attempt at levity before she left for her shift at the hospital this morning. 

Given the grisly turn of events over the weekend, Kev didn’t blame her.

“Dad,” Kevin greeted hesitantly. “Hey. You’re actually home. And functioning.”

“Barely.” Sheriff Keller removed his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. There were huge scooping bags under his eyes and he look in desperate need of some R&R.  “Got in at four am last night and slept on the couch so I wouldn’t wake your mother.”

He then let out a noise of exasperation and slapped down the copy of the _Riverdale Registrar_ on the counter for Kevin to see. The front page read: ‘JASON BLOSSOM MURDERED – HIS KILLER ON THE LOOSE.’ Underneath it was a sub-header, innocently asking: ‘are we still safe in Riverdale?’

Kevin cringed.

“Dawg nabbit, them Coopers.” His father declared. “Been to three world fairs, a goat rodeo and ain’t seen such irresponsible journalism anywhere.”

“It’s a small town, dad,” Kevin said, smiling at the resurrection of his father’s old Southernisms. He poured what was left of the coffee into two travel mugs—one for him and one for Betty—then rooted around the cupboard for the Splenda. “It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened here since Mariah Carey’s tour bus broke down and somebody posted an Insta-story of her buying candy-bars at the 7-Eleven.”

At his father’s look, he shrugged. “What? The girl was up on stage for seven hours at a time. She’s entitled to a damn snickers if she wants one.” 

Sheriff Keller rolled his eyes.

 “Well, whole town’s riled up enough as it is,” he muttered. “Damn phone has been ringing off the hook and Blossom’s been on me like a fat tick.”

“It’s been a busy weekend for everyone,” Kevin agreed nervously.

He and Moose spent Saturday night and the better half of their Sunday at the station for processing. If Kevin thought it would’ve been awkward to explain to his father what he and Moose were doing at Sweetwater River at 11 o’clock at night, it was nothing compared to Moose and Colonel Mason. Thankfully, Kevin’s quick thinking saved the other boy an unscripted tumble out of the closet. He explained that Moose was only showing him the Hell Week exercise that Chuck and the other boys had made him, Archie and Reggie perform the other week. Moose was the only one who hadn’t made it across the river and asked Kevin to spot him while he practised. 

Which wasn’t an ideal explanation—as it still earned them both a lecture on how stupid and dangerous it was to try and swim a river at night, given how Jason was previously thought to have _drowned_ —but it was ballsy and manful enough to pass the Colonel’s muster nonetheless.

Bonus, Moose could also save face at school and have something to tell his girlfriend, Midge, come Monday.

Of course, Sheriff Keller knew his son better than that, and while he’d been busy all weekend heading the draft work on a new investigation, it was only a matter of time before _that_ subject came up.

And spending longer than five minutes in a room alone with his dad only increased the chances of it coming up by 100% and he did _not_ need that drama in his life.

It was time for a swift exit.

Kevin pulled out his iPhone from pocket to check the time. “All right, I’m off. And Mom just texted me to ask if you’ll be home for dinner—she’s making pork chops tonight.” 

“I’ll let her know later,” his father replied and then, before Kev could bound out the side-door and into safety, he drew himself up, reaching for his Stetson on the far end of the counter. “Hold up a second, son. I’ll drive you to school. I’m heading there right now anyway. Damage control.”

Kevin froze. He looked down at the two travel mugs in his hands. “Actually, Dad—I-I was just about to go meet with Betty.”

“You can talk to your friends at school, bud. I’ve got a minute now and if this weekend was any indication, I’m not going to have too many of those in the next few weeks. I want to talk to you about a few things.”

 _Dawg nabbit_ , Kevin thought. He picked up his phone to text Betty.

_< Sorry, Dad’s running interference >_

_< Nothing says ‘Happy Monday’ like murder and uncomfortable conversations with your gay son>_

_< If you see Buffer & Hotter Ed Sheeran, cross the street, avoid eye-contact. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage>_

Then, after debating it for a moment or two...

_< #staystrong>_

He got into the passenger side of cruiser and seeing no room on the humped electronics of the dashboard, awkwardly set the tumblers down on the floor in front of him to buckle himself in, before retrieving them. When he settled himself back comfortable, his father was staring at him.

That was not good sign.  

“What?” Kevin shifted in his seat, feeling his neck flush in guilt and embarrassment.  His father didn’t start the car yet and he was wearing what Kev’s mother called his ‘concerned interrogation face.’

Definitely not a good sign.

The Sheriff leaned on arm on the wheel and his bushy brows furrowed.  “You doing all OK?”

“Yeah, dad. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Um, yeah?” Kevin nodded and looked to the side. He felt like he was missing something obvious or something unseemly on his face. “Why—why wouldn’t I be?”

Sheriff Keller frowned.

“You discovered the dead and decomposing body of one of your one of your classmates this weekend. Discovered he was murdered instead of drowned like we all thought. That—that isn’t something you want to talk about?”

Unbidden, the memory of Jason’s waterlogged corpse sprang to mind and Kevin felt something cold and electric skate up his spine. That was Jason Blossom. Or once had been Jason Blossom. A living, breathing teenage boy that Kevin used to see walking down the school hallways or sitting at a booth at Pop’s or laughing on the bleachers with his friends. He was Cheryl’s brother. Polly’s boyfriend. Someone’s friend and son and student. He had a smile like a Cadillac—timeless, cherry, and could make you hyperaware of your own heartbeat.

Kevin shoved that down and shook his head.

“Honestly, dad. I rather not.”

“Weatherbee has gone ahead to have some uh, grief counselors available at the school,” Sheriff Keller pressed. “You can take advantage of that service, but if you don’t like any of ‘em, there’s also Mrs. Klump that helps with some of our officers sometimes.”

Mrs Klump was Midge’s mother—Midge who also happened to be Moose’s girlfriend. That wasn’t even six degrees of separation. That was just three degrees of ‘hell to the no.’

“Ahh—I appreciate the concern, dad. I really do. But I’m good.” Kevin looked out the window. “I didn’t even know Jason that well.”

They might’ve spoke once, after P.E. Jason came over and complimented Kevin on his throw. ‘Good arm,’ he had said and then asked if he thought about football. Kev wasn’t sure what he said back, he was so flustered, but it must have been suitably snappy and clever because Jason grinned and said, ‘ok, but if you change your mind…’

He remembered reporting back to Betty and calling her sister’s boyfriend a regular, red-headed Shane Falco—right down to the Keanu Reeves’ wooden delivery.

Thinking about it now, Kev felt a twinge of guilt in his chest. Maybe Jason should’ve waited to be found by someone with more of a personal connection and reverence for him in life.

Or maybe, it was for the best that he wasn’t.

It felt oddly like being chosen.

Sheriff Keller was still talking. “Son, it honestly wouldn’t be any trouble to—”

Kevin groaned impatiently and held up his hand. “Can we just drop this? Please?”

“All right, all right,” the Sheriff relented and sat back to start the car. “Your mother and I are just concerned about you. Ever since this Jason hurricane blew in, we don’t get to see much of each other and we want to make sure you’re taken care of.”

There was a pause. Keller took his eyes off the road to momentarily glance at his son, and then fixed them forward again.   

“There was something else I wanted to talk to you about. You and that Mason boy, Moose—”

“—Oh my God!”

“—Given all that paper work we had you two filling out, I’d say that was punishment enough for putting that funny twist on skinny dipping,” Keller went on, a ghost of a smile playing along the hard lines of his mouth. “But you know, there’s nothing wrong with going to the movies or the drive-in with a nice boy. While Riverdale ain’t so conservative anymore, the backwoods is still too sordid a place for any people of principle.”

“Are you calling me trashy, dad?”

“I’m telling you to act like you had some raisin’.” His father’s face turned serious. “The spotlight is now on me and therefore, on this family while I work on getting this whole mess sorted. My term is up next year and with all the mud slinging going on down at county, we gotta keep our noses clean. My boy being the one to find the body raises enough eyebrows as it is, you hear?”

“Yeah,” Kevin muttered under his breath as they pulled up in front of the school. “God forbid they start questioning your good name again.”

“What’d you say to me?”

“Nothing.” He unbuckled and picked up his coffees again. “Thanks for the ride, dad. I guess I’ll see you at school.”

**

 _Most of you already know the details, but your classmate Jason Blossom's body was found late Saturday night. So as of the weekend, Jason's death is now being treated as a homicide._ _It is an open and ongoing investigation…_  
  


It was impossible not to think of Jason Blossom.

 

His heartbreaking conversation with Betty on Saturday night had dragged Archie Andrews through the emotional ringer, but the news of Jason’s body washing up in the shallows of the Sweet River that same night was a push over the goal line.

 

There was no avoiding the orbit of flowers, notes, photos and flags and other colourful tributes that had sprung up around Jason’s locker on Monday morning. Archie’s own locker was two units down and the memorial pile only seemed to grow after each class. By third period, some of it encroached on his standing space and he had to be careful where he put his large, white sneakered feet. He almost crushed a small teddybear when getting his books for study hall.

 

 Bending down, Archie picked up the stuffy. The synthetic fur was deep brown, with black buttons for eyes. Apart from the blue and gold jersey it’d been fitted with, there was nothing Jason-like about it. But for a moment—for the briefest of moments— there was a flash and it was something else.

Startled, Archie dropped it.

When he had taken that second swim for Moose across the Sweet Water River for his Hell Week initiation, he **had** seen it. Jason’s corpse. Down in the reeds. Archie convinced himself it was his imagination—a trick of the moonlight—some hallucination from the near black-out exertion of swimming four widths of the river, 100 yards across each way. It was dark, the water was murky and his adrenaline was in the alps. On the opposite shore, Reggie had been hollering at him for being an idiot, hollering at him to keep swimming and he was fighting to keep on.

‘Football is a physical game. We need to know you’re tough enough to be a bulldog.’ Chuck Clayton’s words punched his eardrums. ‘Jason did this to keep his jersey. You’ll have to as well!’

 _But Jason was captain of the waterpolo team_ , Archie thought as the water closed over his head and his muscles burned from the cold. _200 yards was nothing for him_. _And he drowned in this river._

But even back then, when he saw what he thought he saw in the watery gloom, he wasn’t so sure.  

‘Fireworks,’ Geraldine had insisted in the car after they scrambled to pack up their things and Archie remembered thinking to himself that people didn’t scramble to pack up their things for fireworks. People didn’t set off fireworks at 6 am on July 4th. People didn’t abruptly end relationships, no matter how forbidden or taboo, for fireworks. ‘What we heard wasn’t a gunshot. It didn’t sound like a gunshot.’

‘It sounded like one to me,’ Archie said. He played enough videogames and watched enough movies to at least recognize the difference. He also shot a gun, once, one summer on his uncle Sherman’s ranch in Arizona. ‘If you don’t think it was a gun, why are we running away?’

‘Because it means someone else was at the River with us!’  Geraldine slapped the steering wheel with her palms and she looked at him with such terror in her eyes, Archie shrunk away. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this. You—me—it’s wrong.” She looked simultaneously younger and older with her face scrunched up like that. “I can’t keep looking over my shoulder, Archie! I can’t keep worrying about who will see us!’

‘It was fireworks,’ she said again, and this time, with more authority. ‘Or maybe a car—old cars do that. When unburned fuel gets into the exhaust. Mine does that sometimes, remember?’

It was true, he’d heard it.  And that old jalopy Betty and her dad used to fix up in the garage used to do that too. It _was_ possible. Geraldine was older and a teacher, besides. It was her _job_ to know and de-mystify things. Archie had long ago made peace with the fact that he’d never been the smartest bulb in the utility box.  

Maybe he was dramatizing. Maybe he was wrong. His heart and his mind would race so fast, his thoughts fumbling and tripping over themselves whenever the subject came up. He couldn’t trust himself to think.

‘You can’t tell anyone about this,’ Geraldine had warned him. ‘About us—about what you think you heard. You cannot discuss it with anyone, ever. It’s better if you forget this—us—happened at all.’

But Archie couldn’t forget. He didn’t know why it affected him so much, but something fundamental inside of him had collapsed when she pulled away. He spent all summer in a war of nerves. What was true, what wasn’t true; if they did the right thing not saying anything about it.  The urge to tell someone—talk about it—rose like bile in the back of his throat and he had to swallow it down, letting it work through him like a slow poison instead. It left him broken and confused and listless for weeks. 

Alone. And guilty.

Always guilty.

When he told Betty that song-writing had kept him sane, he hadn’t been lying.

… _If you know anything that could help us find and apprehend Jason's killer, or anything about what happened to him on July 4th, I strongly urge you to come forward immediately_ _…_

Archie sucked in a stressful breath.

It _was_ a gunshot.  He and Geraldine—they had heard Jason’s killer that day at the River.

It calcified into a flinty certainty that scraped against his lungs with every inhale. 

The sound of a bang somewhere behind him almost made Archie jump out of his skin. He whirled and spotted Jughead pulling out textbooks from his locker and stuffing them into his messenger bag. Apart from a few baby-faced freshmen loitering down the hall and an upperclassman stapling notices to the bulletin board, the two of them were relatively alone.

Another pang of conscience rocketed through Archie. After his exchange with Betty in front of her house and then news of Jason, he hadn’t made any additional efforts to reach out to Jughead. Just one text, <hey man, you ok?> and then no other follow-up.   He debated typing something more personal, but he already felt like a dick. Not just about the summer or even before then, but also because Jug was there to witness the whole fiasco with Veronica and how it had hurt Betty.

As if Jug needed to add to his list of reasons why his former-best-friend was an grade-A asshole.

And Betty—Oh God.  This was the longest they’d gone not speaking to one another since they argued about the direction of their lemonade business in the fourth grade. If Archie wasn’t thinking about Jason, he was thinking about the look on her face when he told her he didn’t think he was good enough for her, wishing desperately that he could take back that entire evening and have a do-over. The thoughts swirled in his head again, disjointed, panicked—needing to do something, anything, to fix this _immediately_. Maybe he didn’t feel that way about her now, but maybe he should’ve given them a chance? They’d been best friends forever, after all. It wouldn’t be that far of a leap.

But then, his thoughts would wander back to Geraldine, back to Veronica, back to the confusing void in his life that was left behind by Jason Blossom and while he went as far as to write, ‘I’ve done some thinking…’ he promptly deleted it and wrote, ‘can we talk?’ instead to buy himself some time.

But that text, just like all the others, went unanswered and the curtains on her window remained drawn. She sailed right passed him in homeroom that morning, chin forward and pony-tail swinging and it killed him to feel relief that he hadn’t followed through on that impulse.

She didn’t look at him once.

Archie glanced down at Jason’s memorial again. At least he could do the right thing _some_ of the time, even when it felt like a grenade to the chest.

Before he even realized he was making the decision, his feet took him across the hall to lean on the locker next to Jughead’s.

 “Hey,” he greeted.

 “Hey,” came the flat reply.

Archie rubbed the neck of his neck.  He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting.  Jughead was a stone-wall when he was cobbled up in his own self-righteousness.

 “You—uh, you didn’t respond to any of my texts this weekend.”

“Yeah, I know. I was busy.” Jug didn’t spare him a glance. “This whole Jason-didn’t-drown-thing was a real game-changer for my novel.” 

Archie frowned. “Is that all it is to you? Material for a story?”

 “You know me, I’m Mr. Sensitivity,” Jughead retorted dryly and continued to root around in his locker. “It’s not like I had any love for the guy, but… some things just… choose you, y’know?”

Archie folded his arms uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess I get that.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Jason’s memorial again. “Listen, man, about this weekend—did you talk to Betty?”

Betty being Betty, she was probably beating herself up about what happened too. And that was on top of the things they’d said to one another.  He didn’t know much about how Jughead and Betty had been fairing lately in the friendship department, but Jug had always been her sounding board when he wasn’t around. And with Veronica reporting that Betty wasn’t speaking to her either and Kevin finding dead bodies, he hated the idea that she had no one to turn to.

It made him want to kick himself again.  

“No,” said Jughead.

“Do you plan to?” 

“Maybe.”

Archie glanced towards the ceiling, growing exasperated with former friend’s persecution complex. “Look, you can hate me all you want but Betty—it was just a stupid game. She didn’t mean anything about it.”

Jughead snorted. There was an edge to his smile. “Oh, I _know_.”

“I really hurt her, Jug.” Archie slumped against the locker wall, his cheek against the cool aluminum. “Like, bad. I had no idea that she felt like that.”

“Jesus. Do you work for the government or something?” Jughead slammed the locker door shut, hoisting his bag up onto one shoulder. “You seriously had no idea? Like half the town knew.”

Archie felt the tips of his ears grow hot.  “If half the town knew and you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”

Although it was never said, the words ‘you’re an idiot’ lit up like a flash fire under his nose. This was exactly the type of smug bullshit that he had been wearing on him for years.

Something chased across Jughead’s expression, but in a blink, it was gone. He chewed his lip and looked down and then back up again.

“Would it have made a difference?” he asked seriously. “Would you have given her a different answer?”

 _No_ , Archie thought and the fight immediately left him.

He looked away.

Jughead heaved a sigh through his nose and shook his head.  He sounded tired. “Look, Arch. One of the perks of us no-longer-being-friends is that I don’t have to listen to any more of your drama. Yours or Betty’s. So, whatever you two need to figure out, you figure it out with her. I’m done with this.”

He turned to go.

“You still should’ve told me,” Archie said and Jughead paused.  He looked over his shoulder.

“Yeah, well, I guess you can add that to the pile of secrets between us.”

“What’s that’s supposed to mean?”

“You damn well know what I mean.”

“You shut me out,” Archie said bitterly.

“No, _you_ shut me out.” Jughead rounded on him. “I’m tired of being the cut-rate friend you turn to when Betty or any of your bros aren’t around to entertain you. But you want to have a conversation?  Fine.” He stepped closer, his face a menace. “Why don’t you start with your whereabouts on July 4 th? The weekend you bailed on me at the last minute and told me your dad needed you for a project.”

He shook his head his head in disgust and continued. “You know, I went to your house when you didn’t answer any of my texts. Your dad was confused to see me at the door; he said you’d already left to go with me and I covered for you. I don’t even remember what I cobbled together on the spot, but your dad bought and you got off the hook with him. But you’re not off the hook with me.”

He took another step closer under the two of them were nearly eye to eye. “So I’m asking you now. Where were you the day Jason Blossom disappeared?”

The blood was rushing between Archie’s ears and his whole face was red—he couldn’t decide if he was more ashamed or angry. He didn’t like the insinuation in the least.

 “Are you asking because you care or because of that novel your writing?”

Anger, then.

Jughead’s smile was a jackknife. “What do you think?”

The bell rang and Archie pulled away in disgust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's thoughts and comments are always SO appreciated. 
> 
> I have a small subplot for Reggie written that I’m still debating about keeping in because I feel like it compliments Archie's and maybe complicates things for Jughead. I know most people signed up for Betty x Jughead, but this suddenly turned into an expansion and fix-it for the first two episodes. I want to add some Val too. What do you guys think? Do you have any thoughts/reflections as to what you'd like to have seen the series expand on more, canon-wise?
> 
> I have a tumblr if anyone wants to follow me there. Username is raptorlily.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts and comments very much appreciated and welcome.


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